Stranger dreams

I’m not good at remembering dreams so I’m writing this here. This happened two weeks ago.

I slept at around 12 midnight. I got up at exactly at 3 AM. Yes, that’s three hours of sleep. This has been my routine for more than a year now. I start my day drinking brewed coffee and eating toasted sliced bread with butter. I’ve been doing freelance work for this same company for three years. So everything at this point, as far as my job is concerned, has been routine. I can do my tasks with my eyes closed.

After responding to important emails, I said “Hi” to my colleagues online. We have a chatroom where everything gets discussed. There were four online (three from the Dominican Republic one in the US). The boss, a New Yorker, was idle. That’s always good news (like his city, he wants things done fast). There were no immediate requests that needed to get handled.

Suddenly, I started having problems with my Internet. I remember having trouble opening websites. I decided to restart my computer. Got back in after five to eight minutes. I started back reading the conversation in our group chat, checking if I missed out on any updates. I noticed that the only words that came from me was “I’m back”. Weird, considering that I knew I had a few short conversations since I logged in earlier. To be certain, I started looking at logs and time stamps. There was nothing there. I then checked my email’s sent folder. For sure, the emails I responded to earlier had copies there. To my shock, nothing!

It dawned on me that everything that I thought I did never really happened. It all happened inside my head! I never had my coffee, no toasts with butter. My Internet never got disconnected. The chats, the emails, they never happened. It is clear now that I woke up from that hyper realistic dream of mine when I typed those words “I’m back.” This strange dream would not be the last. It had a shorter sequel a few days later…

I had this bad habit of catching a nap after a heavy meal. One day, I was woken up by my wife. She normally doesn’t disturb me unless it’s something really important. But this time she did. She said she only wanted to remind me that she and my son had eaten one of the mangoes (she bought three big ones the previous day). She remarked that they were nice and sweet. I said OK and then went back to sleep. The following day, to my surprise I found that the mangoes, all of them, were untouched! I confronted my wife and asked “didn’t you tell me last night you sampled one of the mangoes?” She gave me this puzzled look and said in her usual emphatic “suplada” tone “No”.

Of course she did not. Again, I dreamed all that!

Is it possible that we all could be living inside such dreams? When we see a person who acts strange, those who seem to talk to imaginary companions, are they really mad or are they living inside these prolonged lucid dreams? I’m not worried but perplexed because this hasn’t happened before.

And yet there’s another strange occurrence a few days ago. I don’t know how this one ties up with my two strange dreams earlier.

The other day, I labeled a few jars. The way I do this is with a packing tape and a pentel pen. I’m not really a stickler for order, but I like labeling things, even when the visible contents are already screaming what’s inside. After labeling a few jars. I had a short merienda (light snack). I took my stuff and placed it inside our cabinet. We have a dedicated area for hardware and tools. Then I slept afterwards.

Later that day my wife called my attention asked, “Why was the masking tape inside the ref?”.

Oh boy.